Title ESA_L2BW3_Open Secret_Case Study.pdf ✅

Healthy & tasty snacking EARLY STEPS ACADEMY | Making global leaders of tomorrow SNEHA BISWAS

3 “This #Navratri, don’t only do the Kanya Pooja but also support them with good education, inspire them to dream beyond marriage and empower them with financial independence.” - Ahana Gautam, Founder & CEO, Open Secret Ahana and Udit with their team at Open Secret The team Ahana, the founder and CEO, completed engineering from IIT-Bombay and studied business from Harvard Business School. She started her career at the famous consumer goods company P&G which is known for its products such as Ariel, Oral B., Tide etc. At P&G, she worked in various functions such as operations, finance, and marketing. Here she learnt how to build great products that people use everyday. After Harvard, she joined General Mills – an American food brand famous for its snacks, ice-creams, cookies etc. . The co-founder of Open Secret was Udit Kejriwal, a graduate of IIT Kharagpur. He studied business from IIM Ahmedabad. Like Ahana, Udit worked in P&G where he learnt a lot about consumer products. Later he worked with the world’s top consulting firm, McKinsey & Co., where he enhanced his problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills. In 2019, Ahana and Udit got together with the mission to solve Indian mothers’ problem of finding healthy snack options for their kids. The solutions Ahana said her days in IIT Bombay and Harvard Business School had prepared her to hunt for solutions and she enjoyed the process of developing something new. Open Secret launched its first set of nutty cookie products in 2019. With nuts and chocolates as the primary ingredients, the product’s core differentiator lied in being an equal blend of health and taste. In order to solve for the high women unemployment in India, Ahana decided to employ more women in her company. Every second employee in Open Secret’s manufacturing unit was a woman. By doing this, she was able to empower several women by providing them with jobs. Women employees at Open Secret’s manufacturing unit Early Steps Academy Confidential |